Pillows come in a variety of forms, with the more typical consisting of rectangular, fabric enclosures filled with feathers, down, chipped foam, or a polyester fill in a traditional overall shape (e.g., converging corners and a convex upper surface presented when supported on a bed). These pillows may be re-shaped by the user to provide reasonably adequate support for the user while the user falls asleep. However, many people suffer from an uncomfortable night's sleep because of the inadequate support that their head and neck receive while using these traditional pillows throughout the night. This is because traditional pillows either have a body that is so soft that the neck support area compresses to result in no support, or the body is so firm that the head sits considerably higher than the shoulders of the user, resulting in an abnormal sleeping position. Chronic neck pain or stiffness and a tense upper back are often the result of these inadequate forms of support these traditional pillows provide.
Various foam pillows have also been developed that comprise a foam body taking the place of the above-noted fillers and inserted into a fabric enclosure. These foam body pillows include polyurethane foam pillows (e.g. Omalux® high density foam sold by Carpenter Co. of Richmond, Va.) and also include visco-elastic foam pillows (e.g. the “PERFECT PILLOW® comfort support device and the ISOTONIC® pillow also sold by Carpenter Co.). Foam based pillows avoid problems such as filler clumping and can facilitate washing by allowing for easier removal of the pillow support from its fabric enclosure. However, even with a high quality foam body such as the polyurethane foam pillows noted above, the pillow can be deemed by some users to not adequately support the head and shoulders in a manner that is most comfortable to the user. This is because the prior art foam pillows are designed to generally present singular or unitary support characteristics over an entire head contact surface area of the pillow, and most prior art foam pillows are generally not well suited for heat dissipation. In an effort to provide added comfort, the prior art has relied upon expense increasing features as in, the addition of ventilation holes and/or extra layers of added material and/or added components such as adjustable air bladders. Thus, the foam pillows of the prior art are not well suited to provide varying degrees of support at targeted portions of the pillow to provide more comfortable support and/or have a tendency to provide poor heat dissipation and/or present highly complex and overly expensive designs.
Various examples of combination pillows can be seen in the multiple foam type/multiple layer arrangement in U.S. Pat. No. 5,689,844, the composite pillow of U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,855 and the visco-elastic pillow with added inflatable air bladder of U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,725.